Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-01
THE sAvAGERY OF BOYHooD.,

John johnson, Jr., does humanity serv-
ice in his paper in the current number Of
the Popular Science Monthly on "The
Savagery of Boyhood." His text is the
recital of an act of cruelty by twelve
| year-old Procrustes, towards bird he
ruthlessly destroyed, and for which he
manifested no moral sense of mercy, or ex-
perienced any pang Of regret; on the con-
| trary, he related his achievements with
nonchalant unconcern. Mr.. Johnson de-
clares it to be his conviction that this APP
parently barbarous state of mind is not ex-
ceptional in boys conclusion in which
fair Judging men and women will readily
concur. But so far from bemoaning in
sensibility, for apparent absence of the
humane quality in the boyish nature, the
essayist borrows no trouble whatever, but
looks upon the lack of tender sympathy in
the average boy as a natural incident of
healthful masculine development.
PROFESSIONALLY Mr. johnson is right in
this judgment of human nature. There
are instances in boyhood of exceeding, not
to say abnormally sympathetic natures
| of excessive tenderness, gentleness and SEN
sibility TO animal suffering and human woe,
but as a rule, as every teacher and parent
knows, the boy proper and usual, of every
day activity, is of quite different timber.
As Mr. johnson observes, healthy boys
under fifteen feel very little compassion
for any suffering but that of their near
relatives, their close friends, and OCCASION
ally their pet animals. He might have
gone still further and have added that
even close friends and pets are not always
spared the pains of downright cruelty by
the boy, while he is very frequently
apathetic to the woes of near relatives.
The sound conclusion is reached that the
precociously sensitive boy, the highly SYM
pathetic, is not more desirable than the
precociously intellectual boy. These alb
normally sensitive and sympathetic boys
are OF the stripe of lads who overflow with
tender sympathy in the tales of good
children, and whose remarkable lives are
recorded in excessively good Sunday-school
books and the youths magazines, which
appear to be the chief discoveries of boy
ish nerves and melting juvenile tenderness.
The world has reached the level of sound
sense in the opinion of the essayist regard
ing intellectual precocity, and parents no
longer desire to model their boys after the
pattern of John Stuart Mill, reading Lucan
and Plato at eight, or after the fashion of
youngs Macaulays and Pascals They
rather agree with Huxley, and feel some
alarm about intellectual early risers,"
lest they should I" be conceited all the fore
noon of life and stupid all the afternoon"
And the parental majority verdict we
accept as sound, since healthy physical
growth and courageous manly develop
ment appear to be slow in their processes
and to arise out of degree of Juvenile in
sensibility, rather than result from exceed
ing ssnsitiveness in the sappy age.
There is strain of savagery in every
boyish nature that is better present than
absent, but excessive cruelty and moral
precocity alike betoken abnormal develop
ment. For, as Mr.. johnson boldly asserts,
experience ought to teach us that
precocious emotion is an unnatural
state, the result of unhealthy development
Of the brain, since nature has ordained that
the sympathies shall not develop strength
until manhood is more nearly reached. 1t
is not necessary to consider the physiolog-
ical development of the brain, the stages of
growth through which it passes from the
merely animal in existence to full de-
velopment and intellectual strength, to
sustain the theory of Mr.. johnson. Ex-
perience in every day life teaches parents
that the bright lad who retains the nat
ural savagery-for lack of better term
of boyhood, makes a stronger man than the
bright lad whose sensibilities are attuned
to too high a key. The boy is less than a
boy who has not in the right age mani
ifested some insensibility to cruelty that a
few years later his soul would abhor,
against which every fiber of his being
would revolt
The naturally developing boy is at once
savage in his disregard of dirt, in the alb
sence of caution in feeding, in the treat
ment of animals, in domination over the
weak and shrinking. But no normally de-
veloping boy is wholly so; there breaks
through his crust of unfeeling, strong
CLEANS of the light, of approaching man
hood and of deepening reason, keen sensi-
bility TO fair play, manly disposition to
prevent encroachment upon human
rights, the chivalrous spirit in pre-
venting and defending, strong affection
and tender love. The abnormal condition
is that of the predominance of savagery
on the one hand and exceeding moral
sensitiveness on Il e other The happy
mean gives lis the strong youth, in whom
purpose can be planted upon firm ground,
and from whom true manhood may be looked
for.
Mr.. johnson declines to enter into con-
sideration of the question, How far may
we safely go in trying-to alter the natural
course of a childs mental growth by inn
posing upon him ideas which, in due
course, he will not share until later ~
But why he should have paused at this
stage is not clear. The answer appears to
us to be unmistakable So far as the boy
is found to be receptive without suffering
repression that makes him unboyish in
desire and abnormally sedate, that far we
may and ought to so in training him out
of excess of savagery and into healthy
channels of development. But the forcing
process that represses instead of controls,
that imprisons the limbs instead of
training them, that attempts to cast the
young soul in mold and overload it rather
than>fashion it as it expands and eultivates
its strength, is the wrong process Of cor
recting the natural savagery of the healthy